Category: Kodi

Configuring LibreELEC

Migrating from OpenELEC to LibreELEC kodi

John Large 6 Comments

I’ve been using OpenELEC for a few years now, having it installed on an older Apple TV 1 (ATV1) and more recently on my Raspberry Pi 2 for use as a media centre. OpenELEC drastically simplified a kodi installation on any supported hardware & by aiming OpenELEC at being an appliance they managed to make a lightweight & rock solid kodi OS.

It would seem over the past 6 months or so, development of OpenELEC and support for OpenELEC has wound down. Maybe the developers have other projects to focus on, but I found that it wasn’t being updated as often as I would like. I then spotted LibreELEC which is operated by a small board of developers focused on creating a system with just enough OS for Kodi. This is excellent news for anyone running Kodi on a Raspberry Pi as the filesystem requirements are small & only enough processes & services run in order to support Kodi, meaning precious resources are freed up on slower hardware. Read More....

iOS 5.1.1 lock screen

iPad 2 downgraded from iOS 9 to iOS 5.1.1 – So much Faster

John Large 8 Comments

I bought my iPad 2 back when it was first released. I bought it on release date back in March 2011. I remember driving a 150 mile round trip from my new home in Cornwall to Exeter to visit the apple store and pick one up. On arrival, the only iPad 2 left in stock was the most expensive 64GB version with GSM cellular built-in. I really wanted a 3G version so I could use it anywhere so I jumped at the chance and paid the hefty £659 price tag. I loved the iPad 2 when it came out. I loved reading books on it, working & writing on the go. Browsing the net on a big screen anywhere & watching media on it. I really did fall in love with this device. Over the years as it has become older & with each iOS update the iPad 2 has gone from being a speedy device for all of my mobile computing to a sluggish and painful device to use. In my opinion, Apple should have stopped supporting the iPad 2 at iOS 7. They need to make better efforts for apps to support older version of iOS. But they won’t. This is perfectly useable tech & it seems so wasteful that software can make useful hardware obsolete. Read More....

And Finally the working My Subscriptions page with working thumbnails

Kodi YouTube plugin broken – *FIX*

John Large 46 Comments

Update 11th August 2017
**If you are having issues with youtube on kodi not showing your subscriptions or videos & loading blank pages, I recommend you download the new YouTube plugin respository from here. Install the repository on Kodi and update the youtube plugin to the latest version, currently YouTube for Kodi 5.4.2. **

Recently Bromix, the developer of the awesome YouTube addon for Kodi decided to quit the project & concentrate on other things. This quickly lead to the addon breaking, days after he announced he was leaving the project. As yet nobody has taken up the reigns on this plugin. Over the past few days the plugin has been broken, with the My Subscriptions tab breaking and thumbnails failing to load. If you use this addon like me you will rely heavily on the My Subscriptions tab. I subscribe to a lot of YouTube channels & tend to watch this in the evening with my wife over watching traditional TV. The My Subscriptions tab essentially brings together all of the latest videos (in order) from every youtuber you subscribe to. Read More....

OmnieVESA raspberry pi mount & temporary paperclips

Raspberry Pi 2 – First Impressions

John Large 1 Comment

I finally got a chance to order a Raspberry Pi 2 a few weeks back. I’ve been meaning to post about it for a while but I’ve been extra busy. I ended up picking the Pi up from The Pi Hut after really struggling to track one down on the high street. As always the service from The Pi Hut was great & a few days later my new Pi arrived.

Top view of Raspberry Pi 2

It’s hard to believe that the Raspberry Pi team have managed to squeeze so much power out of the same form factor & price point. The fact that it’s a quad-core means that everything feels much snappier. Less like a mega budget hobby machine & more like a mid range desktop PC. It will always be limited by processing power & RAM, not to mention raw graphic processing, but when you consider the price point & opportunity to try any project you like for very little financial outlay the Raspberry Pi will always be a great machine. Read More....

kodi Youtube Addon

Raspberry Pi & Openelec – A good combination.

John Large 6 Comments

I’ve had my rev. B+ Raspberry Pi for just over a year since it’s release. When i got it I had a few projects on the go, including a sickbeard/sabnzbd/couchpotato server and a few media centres. At the time I had XBMC Frodo running on my Apple TV 1 via Crystalbuntu and on my ATV2 by Jailbreaking & installing. Both solutions worked perfectly so the unstable XBMC on the Pi wasn’t really worth pursuing. Also I had issues controlling with a keyboard & a Flirc when the ATV’s utilized the ATV remote so well. Read More....

Rii i8 wireless Keyboard for openelec kodi

Rii i8 mini 2.4GHz wireless keyboard for Openelec on Raspberry Pi

John Large 3 Comments

Rii i8 wireless Keyboard for openelec kodi

This week I finally took the plunge and bought a small wireless keyboard for the Raspberry Pi. The Pi in question is a B+ raspberry pi running at 700MHz and sporting 512MB ram. I’ve got a 32GB Sandisk Class 10 SD card in it and one of the excellent Pibow cases from Pimoroni.

Up until a few weeks ago I’d been using an Apple TV 1 as my main media centre (upgraded with a CrystalHD hardware video decoder & running XBMC) and a Jailbroken ATV2 as my backup. The Apple TV one is great, it’s fast & snappy but it’s a bit of a power hog & can take a while to boot up. Also Crystalbuntu is yet to be upgraded to Kodi as CrystalHD support was removed a few versions back. The ATV2 was great up until XBMC frodo when the hardware limitations started to show. I needed an alternative so I switched to Openelec on the Rapsberry Pi. Read More....

Xbox Hacking – Xbox Crystal & Xbox Media Centre XBMC

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Latest Picture of my Xbox setup.

And a Macro of the xbox & Chip controller.

I started Xbox hacking back in October 2004. I bought a Crystal Xbox for £100. I wanted to get an older model due to the more complex chipping procedure of the 1.6 motherboards in new machines but after aloof thought I decided to go with the new crystal machine. I then purchased a Xecuter 2.6 Mod chip from Kaneaction who offered a great service. The mod chip fitting itself was a nightmare. Took me almost 4 hours to make all the solder points and rebuild the LPC . Also, I lost one of the copper tracks (the heat from the soldering iron destroyed the track) so I had to rebuild the track using wire. After the chip was installed i ripped out the original 8GB Western Digital HD and fitted a 250gb Samsung drive . I then booted the Xbox from Slayers Evox Boot disk and installed Evox, avalaunch & XBMC. Read More....